Definitions
God: In classical theism, a supreme, immaterial, infinite being considered the creator and sustainer of all things; often described as omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and necessary.
Attribute: A quality or characteristic ascribed to a being. In theology, divine attributes include traits like love, justice, power, and knowledge, often considered as perfectly unified in God.
Intelligence: The capacity to understand, reason, and solve problems. In the context of the argument, it refers to the principle or ability that accounts for the universe’s order and function.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): A form of non-biological intelligence, typically created by humans or hypothesized to emerge from natural processes, capable of autonomous learning or reasoning.
Infinity: The state of being without limits or end. In theology, it refers to God's unbounded power or existence.
Pure Act (actus purus): A concept in Catholic theology referring to God as fully actualized, with no potentiality or change — He is complete being, not becoming.
Spirit: A non-material, non-physical essence. In this context, a possible explanation for the cause or structure of reality, distinct from matter.
Creation ex nihilo: A theological doctrine that God created the universe “out of nothing,” not from pre-existing materials.
Pantheism: The belief that God and the universe are identical — that everything collectively is divine.
Symbiotic Relationship: A mutually dependent or complementary relationship between two distinct things. Used here to describe the relation between attributes like love and justice.
ESSENTIALS
Religion says God is intelligent. But if we need intelligence to explain the universe and how it is, that does not mean we need God. We can just settle for intelligence and leave it at that. And why not artificial intelligence? That seems absurd, for it implies you need some being to make the intelligence. But a few forces coming together by pure chance and without any agency can, in theory, form an artificial intelligence — perhaps one that self‑evolves.
If, as religion says, God is so uncomplicated that He does not need assembling, we definitely have a being that is nothing like a person or even a ghost person. Artificial intelligence is the best way to describe it. Religion says calling God personal and relational is a metaphor, but there are more accurate metaphors.
What if you say intelligence is a very complicated thing, so God cannot be uncomplicated? Religion will answer it is not, for intelligence is just intelligence and it is linked to how God sees all things. This is not true. Intelligence is not a thing but a summary word. Maths might ultimately be 1=1, but it is more than that and its complexity ends up being infinite. Maths too is a summary word for many different forms of maths and schemes and constructs.
Some would say that God is Pure Act — it is a Catholic doctrine.
[Clarification: Catholic Doctrine of God as Pure Act
In Catholic theology, God is understood as “Pure Act” (actus purus), meaning God is fully actualized and lacks any potentiality or imperfection. Unlike created beings, which have both potential (the capacity to change or become something else) and actuality (their current state of being), God is purely actual—completely complete and perfect in every way.
This means God does not change, grow, or develop, because change implies moving from potentiality to actuality, which would be a sign of imperfection or limitation. Instead, God’s nature is unchanging and absolute; He is the fullness of existence itself, the ultimate source of all actuality in the universe.
Because God is Pure Act, He is also considered the cause of all potentiality in created things—He actualizes what is possible but does not Himself possess potentiality. This doctrine emphasizes God’s perfection, immutability, and infinite being.]
No reason is given for why "God" just acts blindly and does not know what it is doing. One might as well believe in atheism, for all things would have been put into order by mere chance.
If something with uncomplicated intelligence is able to have things the way they are, then that is all you need. So just say that instead of confusing us with God talk.
MORE MORE MORE
Anyway, let us talk.
If God exists, He is infinite, for He is the reason He exists. All power is His. Many say that as He is the reason He is real, and it takes infinite power to cause something to exist — for the distance between nothing and something is infinite — His power is without end in its potential.
Suppose it is true that the simplest and the most probable explanation for the universe is that a spirit, an immaterial entity, created or made it. This being needs nothing to design it or put it together.
Whatever attribute the spirit has, it has it infinitely. It is infinite power because it takes infinite power to exist. Infinite power is required to hold something in existence because the distance between something and nothing is infinite. Any spirit, God or not, has no parts, so it is wholly anything it does (page 53, God and the Human Condition, Part 1).
Despite being spirit and uncomplicated, religion says it has attributes. Examples are its creativity, its love, its justice, its mercy, its observing all things, and so on.
We know that such a maker would have to have one attribute, especially when it is infinite. If it were justice and were love, it would be two attributes because they are not the same. To assert that it is infinite love and infinite justice would be contradictory.
Religion says love without justice is impossible, for if there is no fairness then it does not matter how you treat somebody. That is true, but it does not mean that love and justice are the same thing. They are in a symbiotic relationship.
So if a divine spirit made or created the universe, it must have one power. It must be that power, that energy. God is the power to create. It is foolish to say that it is love or any other abstract thing, for that is absurd.
Another problem is its infinity as in power.
(a) There is infinity as in being literally unlimited and being everything — e.g., as in God being all power, for there is no power but His. With this there can only be one infinite. This God is His own power and that power is infinite.
(b) Or infinity as in being an infinite line — its power is endless but it does not take in everything. There can be several infinites in this sense.
Religion cannot prove which one God would be. So it is safe to say it is worshipping what could be literally the all.
(a) The notion of a God who is His power and whose power is infinite contradicts the notion that God can order a universe to appear out of literally nothing (the universe was supposedly created not out of anything) that depends on Him, that is not Him.
So if you believe in an infinite God, you by default, despite wishing otherwise, identify Him with what He makes. There is that, but if you say that God has several abilities which are not literal abilities but one, you in principle are saying that the creation and God might be the same thing, and that you are the same entity as the horse.
Also, (b) might deny that God is literally all, but it still fits a pantheistic‑like idea that God is still literally the universe. If you affirm there is a God, you may consider that He is the creation as in being the infinite all or the other infinite. He has a bigger chance of being the universe than the classical Christian God who makes the universe but is distinct from it.
Pretend that God is not all things. If He has one attribute, then He is an “it.” What is the attribute?
It is not intelligence, for stupidity exists.
It is not love, for non‑love exists.
It is not justice, for injustice exists.
It is not design, for some designs are impressive and others are disastrous. To say that we don’t need to say that all things are designed correctly gives rise to this thought, and it is this: Some things looking designed now only look designed — for what if the bad design will take over and erase all of that forever? The good design is not really good, for it cannot withstand that.
The only answer is that we just know it is an attribute but have no idea what else to say about it. God is given loads of qualities, but He can only have one, for He can only be one, and He is not really a He or a God. People will not stop naming His alleged attribute — attributes. Let us play along.
No matter what quality we can name, it is the same. Moreover, each quality consists of different qualities, which we see as different aspects of it. For example, love consists of prudence and humility, which are separate attributes. Intelligence consists of the attribute of being aware that 2+2=4 and that 3+3=6. Again, these are two separate attributes. There is no single attribute, no attribute composed of one attribute only, so the single‑force theory is valueless.
If it created, then it is the power to create and nothing else. And it is the power to create itself only, and it cannot create anything else. It cannot have any other attribute. But it needs more than one attribute to do that. Its power causes the calculator to work, so it must be intelligent.
If it did not create but merely transformed itself, then we meet the contradiction of a being without parts or material composition, with no intelligence, becoming human intelligence.
If the spirit had the power to love or whatever, it would have the power to order things in accordance with its attribute as well. Things like love and justice are a form of order. It cannot exist, for it has these two powers, and we know they go together. It has to have the power to love and the power to create love or something to be loved. This is refuted by how it would need to be just as well!
All laws, if you want to call them that, come from 1=1 or a=a. That implicitly means that 1 is not 2 and a is not b. A spirit force that is just 1=1 or a=a would not need to be an intelligence or anything. It just needs to be that rule.
We conclude that even if there is a creator spirit, it needs only be that. Going for God says more about the person than the truth and more about what they want to think than honesty. Never go further than you need to. The attributes subject in relation to God is riddled with confusion. The idea of a divine spirit making all things is actually incoherent.